Does President Biden Really Understand Bipartisan Concerns About the Border?

By 

Wesley Smith

|
January 12, 2023

7 min read

Immigration

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The seriousness of the issues surrounding what is ongoing at our southern border cannot be overstated, nor can the true concerns voiced by millions of Americans be dismissed.

The border crisis strikes at the heart of some of the most important matters facing the United States:  national security, illegal drugs, and the resulting deaths of Americans, criminal cartel activity and their operational control of our own border, and the scourge of human and sex trafficking.  Additionally, with the five million people who have been encountered illegally crossing the border in just the last two years—as these numbers continue to grow, the very face of the nation and who we are as a people is impacted.  Further, the community resources to care for these millions are stretched all across the nation.

Whereas illegal immigration used to be a problem that simply wasn’t going away—now it is getting exponentially worse every month.  Calling this a crisis is an understatement.

This is why next week a bipartisan group of eight U.S. Senators will visit the El Paso, Texas, and Yuma, Arizona, sectors of the border.  The Senators issued statements calling for congressional action, something that has been seriously lacking in recent years.  The trip and the statements by the Senators recognize that mere Executive actions by the President are not the answer.  And unlike the President’s visit, the Senators plan to do a thorough examination of every aspect of the border situation.

President Biden visited the border at El Paso last Sunday.  While one may ask why it took so long and many were grateful that Biden finally showed up—in reality and in all fairness, it was a photo-op.  In the military it is called a “Dog and Pony Show.”  El Paso cleaned up the immigrant encampments that filled the streets of the city before Biden arrived.  The President did not visit the sites of the true, ongoing crises:  the points where there is no border barrier and where thousands each day—under the direction of Mexican cartels—cross the border.

On the other hand, President Biden is recognizing that some of the policies of his predecessor were working and is facing criticism from the Left for even considering reimplementing them.  While verbally opposing Title 42, Biden is using the policy, as did Trump, to expedite the removal of some individuals to Mexico. The President is now inclined to use Title 8 to expedite even more deportations. He is not tearing down any of the border barriers built by the Trump Administration, as he promised to do as a candidate.  President Biden, at last, seems to be tacitly acknowledging there is a major problem at the border.  We hope President Biden will continue to examine and adjust immigration policy.

However, the President visited a sanitized legal port of entry.  He did not visit informally with any Border Patrol agents or ask for their concerns. These are the same agents he smeared at the start of his presidency. Rather, a few selected agents demonstrated their capabilities:  how working dogs find drugs, how vehicles are searched before going through a U.S. checkpoint, etc.  Those abilities are important.  They are not the nexus of the problem.

President Biden did not even attempt to mask the pro-forma nature of the visit.  Members of the Border Patrol, reacting to all this, tweeted: “We suggest just landing in Des Moines, Iowa and telling him it’s El Paso.  He’ll never know the difference.”

The idea that the President’s visit might be the impetus to impress upon him the reality of the crisis and the human suffering on both sides of the border and cause him to adjust his policies was lost!  As a matter of fact, the new border policies issued by Biden were announced by the President himself before he even left Washington, D.C.  Biden never intended for his visit to be the catalyst for the renewed emphasis on border policy or immigration reform.  The measures he announced were divorced completely from what he could have seen on the 1,951-mile border.

It’s no wonder that Biden’s new policies face criticism from both political parties.  Here are highlights of Biden’s policies:

  • Agreeing to accept 30,000 immigrants a month if they apply for admission properly while in their home country.  These immigrants must be from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.  They must have U.S. sponsors.
  • If people from these countries cross illegally, Mexico has agreed to accept 30,000 of them, whom the U.S. will immediately deport.  They will be barred from future legal entry into the U.S.
  • What about illegal immigrants from other nations?  In November alone, the Border Patrol recorded 234,000 encounters.  Only about 90,000 were from the four nations designated by the President.
  • Biden will continue to use Title 42 to expedite the deportation of some individuals, a practice he roundly criticized former President Trump for using.
  • The White House also announced a plan to use an updated plan from the Trump era which would make immigrants ineligible for asylum in the U.S. if they did not first seek protection in another safe country through which they traveled.
  • The Biden-Harris Administration intends to welcome 20,000 people a year from Latin America and resettle them in the U.S., in addition to those from the four countries the President singled out in his new policy.
  • For the vast numbers who continue to cross illegally, it appears the Biden Administration will continue a policy known as humanitarian parole, where people without visas are allowed to stay in America anyway—circumventing U.S. law and visa limits.  Many of these will be flown at night to cities all across America.

Nowhere does President Biden mention reinforcing border barriers or enforcing all immigration laws.  Going forward, nothing will change unless one is from the four nations in Biden’s new plan.  Thus, hundreds of thousands will continue to illegally cross each month.  If apprehended, most of them will be released into the U.S. never to leave.  Because Mexico gives 30-day visas at their southern border, immigrants from the Northern Triangle countries use that visa to travel freely and directly to the U.S. border—with the full knowledge of the Mexican government.  On the banks of the Rio Grande, the ground is littered with discarded Mexican visas so the U.S. Border Patrol will not know they were granted entrance into Mexico.  The ground is also littered with color-coded plastic bracelets.  These are given to other immigrants by the drug cartels as a part of the cartel’s proof of payment, and control of crossing points.  The immigrants take off the bracelets so as to deny even involvement with or assistance from the cartels.

Many of these, as we already know, are on the terror watchlist and come from well over 100 countries. The hundreds of thousands of so-called got-aways will increase each year, with an unknown number of these on the watchlist.  Our President does not address what to do with the 4 million-plus who entered the U.S. during his presidency.

However, in a parting shot to America, the President blamed Republicans for the border crisis.  He claims they, alone, have blocked immigration reform, ignoring the fact that his party had complete control in Washington for two years and did nothing.  In light of this statement, and all of the above, we are once again reminded that the “buck” does not stop anywhere near Biden or his desk.  Hopefully, with the input of congressional members who visit the border, the House and Senate will seek to address what the President is downplaying—or sometimes ignoring.

When it comes to the few statements the President has now made regarding changing his policy on unlawful immigration, in terms of using Title 8 as a mechanism for increased deportations and similar measures, we will keep putting pressure on the Administration to follow through with these commonsense solutions. And if the President follows through on his word and implements measures that actually work to address the border crisis and the radical Left challenges them in court, we will not hesitate to file legal briefs to defend real border security policies that line up with the Constitution and his duty as President.